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Bucolic Boston back in the day
By adamg on Thu, 05/05/2022 - 11:02am
In 1843, William Sharp created this lithograph of a Boston street scene, specifically, Tremont Street, looking past the Park Street Church and Boston Common on the right.
From the BPL arts department. Posted under this Creative Commons license.
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Comments
Then and now
Maybe things haven't changed that much. Looks like people camped out begging for alms.
/snark
Gorgeous lithograph, but...hE
If the people in this litho could see what that area looks like today they'd be spinning in their graves.
The lack of safe places to play with your dog!
Not to mention all the cars moving at what would be a terrifying pace to people of the era.
Because we all *just know* that there was no poverty or drug abuse in 1843, of course!
Why doesn't it look like that today?
What happened to the gates and trees? Removed for subway construction in 1897? https://goo.gl/maps/6aTbwoPzuvzaQ6xS7
From the looks of it..,
….those are elms in the lithograph, so the answer would be Dutch Elm disease not to mention pesky things like hurricanes and blizzard/ice storms
Pre-WW2
The Common had a lot more fencing.
In the war effort a lot was taken down for scrap. Reportedly it ended up being dumped and not used.
There still are a lot of elms
There still are a lot of elms in the Common and Public Garden.
If these trees did die from disease, why weren't they replaced?
Probably were…
… before anyone knew about the Dutch Elm. Yes, there are elms still but I think only a few are American Elms which form a characteristic group archway when planted in lines across from each other. Construction of the subway permanently eliminated any possibility for trees in that area, because of the tunnel, so the whole stretch from Park to Boylston was paved. The two oldest elms are on either side of the Shaw Memorial on Beacon across from the State House and purportedly planted by John Hancock
https://connecticuthistory.org/a-beautiful-and-goodly-tree-the-rise-and-...
Ah!
I awoke from a dream this morning wondering how I might find the oldest tree in a given neighborhood without harming any trees {i.e. examining bark, branches, foliage, etc.} and to see this snapshot of Park Street before the subway...
ϘΆΙΑ Die Göttin-Väderin shall be visiting soon. I wonder if I could convince her to don a bonnet... Maybe a style to complement her Doc Martens...
Afterwards we might sup upon baked scrod, enjoy some Medford rum at Wilde's and catch a late-night one-horse omnibus {not "shay"} outta the city...
Brimstone Corner
The original painting the lithograph is based on is at the Mass. Historical Society; https://www.masshist.org/database/1697.
They also hold another one of the artist’s Boston street scene paintings that also became popular as a lithograph: https://www.masshist.org/database/1696.